Tuesday, December 23, 2008

If only life were like the movies...

I rented the movie, "The Women" yesterday. It's a great film with zero men in it. It is loaded with my favorite actresses, Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Jada Pinket Smith, Debra Messing, Cloris Leachman, Bette Midler, Candice Bergman...the list goes on. Major stars. All wonderful comic actors with fabulous pedigrees.

Still, emotionally the movie left me a tad bit angry and sad. Meg Ryan's character is a "good girl" who wakes up one day to discover that she did everything everyone wanted and still lost it all...(sound familiar? Yeah, my life.) But lucky Meg gets to go to a spa camp to find herself. After a few weeks of making collages and figuring out who she is-she comes roaring back. Not only does she get a divorce- and gets to keep the million dollar home, the housekeeper, the nanny/governess, plus cars and jewels-but she gets to use her mother's inheritance to start her own fashion line- and tada! She is a success. Divorced, strong and successful all in the span of 9 months... (B*tch)

The problem with these fairy tales is that there is no way for real life to measure up. It's been 11 months for me- I can't get a job at Kmart-let alone start my own million dollar business- I can't even afford a lawyer yet-and if I do get divorced there is no health insurance... (Have you ever made cobra payments? They are as high as a house payment.) Sure, Meg gets the ultimate revenge- where the hell is mine?

All I want is a good job with health insurance and the ability to untie the knot that's choking me and move on... is that too much to ask?

If you are in my situation- fear not- you are not a loser- nothing ever happens like in the movies. We only wish it would.